I'm Awake Now
by DashAway
Summary: Two teenagers encounter a childkilling monster years after his supposed 'death'. One is a boy related to a victim of Freddy's terror, and the other, a girl who worships her dreams. Perfect bait.
1. Enter: Sage

**This fic is completely finished. It just happens to all be on notebook paper. And yes, it's going to be full-length.**

**Any character that you don't recognise from the movies is mine. The plot might tend to focus on my characters more than the nightmares at times. Forgive me? –puppy eyes-**

**I'll update this maybe three times a week or so. **

**It might really suck in the beginning; I wrote the first half a long time ago and recently picked it up again. I have no control over what past-me did. " **

**Disclaimer: -see three paragraphs above- Let's begin!**

**I'm Awake Now **

I was in heaven. Everything was warm and soft and blurred, too, but not in an unpleasant way. In fact, I liked it, and the drowsy, comfortable feeling it gave me. It just reminded me that I was asleep. I moved and talked, my words going everywhere and nowhere and mattering only to me.

I never feel safer than when I'm asleep, and I'll never ask for anything more than the privilege of dreaming. I'd rather dream than live. It seems kind of pathetic but it's true. Dreams are my reality.

But sometimes when you take dreams for what's real, what's real becomes a dream. Like many avid dreamers, I confuse reality with disenchantment. If I don't get that feeling, I don't want it.

Oh, you can keep your blockbusters, your high-strung sociality, your romance novels. I'll take my dreams.

What's more than a little depressing is how much my life revolves around my dreams. I think on them all the time, I get brilliant ideas from them, and I heed their warnings. I enjoy deja-vu and finally figuring out what that one detail meant. Sometimes it is as though my dreams are a living being, showing me what it thought I needed to see. It shows a scene and asks "Does this feel right?". Sometimes it pulls off wonderful tricks—showing me what I'd known in my conscious but not in my mind. It's like a friend. Good thing to know I'm not a complete failure at making them.

I learned early that friends are dangerous. I uphold this science with the exception of one boy. We'll discuss that later.

"Sage," my mother says, "Why don't you join some clubs or get into a programme?" She pleads and sometimes I envision her on her knees, sobbing and tearing out her hair. _Why, oh why, can't I have a daughter with a SOUL! _If I didn't _want_ friends, there is nothing my parents can do. If I _wanted_ friends I could get them. But for now I have all the friends I'll ever need, written inside a dream journal.

And besides, hasn't my mother already meddled enough? So far I have seen four psychologists, none of which have given me much more than a free piece of candy. None of them have figured out 'what's wrong'. That would be because there's _nothing wrong with me._ But once the possibility arises that you're crazy, no one listens anymore. Suddenly they know what's good for you.

Maybe I am insane. Detached, more like it. Not on the same playing field. A blue card in a red deck. A square wheel. Take your pick; I've got more. But are not the sane and the insane equal as the sane lies dreaming?

Lies dreaming as I am right now.

In my dream I am trapped in a house—a perfectly normal, middle-class house. But as I said, I'm trapped and even the yard has security systems. I'm getting frantic now, and I am running from the beast who trapped me. I run to the basement and there's a huge pile of junk there. Right in front is something that disturbs me—a dead dog, frozen in a block of ice. I stop dead and stare at it. Suddenly the beast catches me with a huge, clawed paw and I—

"Oh, gods," I murmured, sitting up in bed. My room was lit brightly by the rising sun and I groaned. Sunlight bothers me. It puts me in a bad mood, no matter how many feel-good vitamins they say are in it. I love nighttime and sunsets but afternoon to me seems like the perfect time to go to sleep, unless it's raining. My parents never understood that. They looked at the blanket I'd thrown over my window and say dumb things like "You're not a vampire."

My dream was pretty stressful, though. Recently it seemed like all my dreams were stressful. It was obviously "kill Sage" week in dreamworld.

The thing that bothered me was the dead dog. I hate dead animals. I shuddered, turning over to find my dream journal. Roadkill I can handle, as well as anything freshly dead. It's the burying part I hate. Something about it...it's like a goodbye that's way too serious. You can never see them again, whether human or animal. Maybe it was that I had, myself, buried four precious animals of mine. Mice, they were. After the fourth I was too traumatised to get another. I used to get an urge to tear open the ground and look upon them, just so I could see them again.

Fitfully I managed to fall asleep again, down down down into dreamland.

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**Obviously the next chapter won't be so self-centred. In the next chapter we introduce the other main character and complete the set. **

**What you should know now is that this is all being written by Sage; she's recording it all. So if the tenses seem mixed up, hopefully the above statement will allow it to make some sense. **

**Thanks for reading! **


	2. Enter: Galen

**Second chapter, whoo! Alrighty, in this one we introduce the second character. It's rather short; thus, I just might update twice tonight. Hooray?**

**Thanks to my reviewers! Your love keeps me alive. **

**Disclaimer: NOES is NOT AND NEVER WILL BE mine. On to the story!**

**Chapter Two**

"Dead dog, eh?" Galen asked.

"Yes," I responded. We were on the phone and he could not see me nod. Galen's my best friend. He's just as psychotic as I am.

We met, actually, in a psychologist's office. He noticed me clutching my dream journal and decided to talk to me. "Bad dreams?" I gave him a look that said _you don't even know the half of it. _

"They aren't always bad...in fact, they're usually fabulous, but..."

"Those few nightmares that slip through the dream catcher really get to ya."

"Yeah," I answered, glowing a little. From then on we have been friends. He has nightmares every night. He often tells me it's a 'disease' he caught from his late cousin, Joey, who died under mysterious circumstances.

"Well, the strain is probably from repression of your emotion. The beast...could be your parents, maybe. As for the dog, it could simply be an image of your fear for dead animals."

"Or?"

"Or something not so simple that we wouldn't see right away." I relaxed further into the hard wooden rocking chair. I was on my porch, and it was about nine fifteen p.m. A citrine candle was dancing beside me, and I watched, mesmerized, the coal-like formations on the thick wick that was burning. My dream journal was on the porch table, the candlelight glinting of its unobtrusive cover. No one could imagine how much I loved that thing. Galen's voice was calming.

"Sage, have you ever seen a dead body? Of a person, I mean."

"Yeah, why?"

"Did it scare you?"

"No."

"Well, I'm wondering why you are only really disturbed by animals."

"It's not just animals, Galen, it's people too, but only when..." I sighed.

"When they're buried."

"Yes." I pictured Galen with the phone in hand, thinking this over, possibly writing it down. I couldn't wait to see him this weekend. He lived far away with his father, but his mother lived here and got weekend privileges. "So how did you sleep last night?" I asked him. He gave a small snort.

"I didn't. Haven't for three days."

"Oh, Galen..."

"Stop, I don't want your sympathies or lectures. I'll sleep tonight." He was such a vigilante. I knew he wasn't kidding about his sleep habits. But I was worried. Sleeping wasn't a joke.

"Can't wait to see you tomorrow," he said. His voice was warm, friendly, loving, and utterly Galen. Feeling creeped up my stomach and into my chest. It'd been happening a lot lately. I'd accepted that I had compassion for him. Just fine with me.

"Neither can I. Bring your—"

"Of course! I wouldn't dream of forgetting it."

"No, in your case you wouldn't dream at all." If he was here, he would have been smiling.

"Look, I'd love to sit and chat about my _preferences,_" he coughed, "But I've got to go; Mom's calling. I'll be at your house by five."

"I'll make sure I'm not sleeping."

"It must be nice, this little world you live in. Bye!" He had never lost his friendly tone.

"Bye." I hung up and went back to simply staring at the night, painfully aware of four graves not far enough away.

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**Dumb, yes, I know. But hooray for Galen! I hope you like him, I really, really do. **

**That's all for today, kiddies!**


	3. Save the night

**Third chapter, whoo! Before anything goes further, I should have told you this before...the story takes place in the mid-nineties. Around 1995. As you should know, the NOES series started ten years before that. Joey, who I took directly from the movie (and who is Galen's deceased cousin) didn't come in until about six years later in the NOES world. That brings us to 1991, and then about a year later Joey died (1992). This is three years after that. **

**Thanks for paying attention to that rather large body of text...anyway, normal disclaimers apply. Here we go!**

**Chapter Three**

I ran through my house, gleefully shoving things out of my way. I was so excited; I could feel joy pulsing through me. I leaped over a basket of clothes. I was almost there...the front door—

"Ah!" I tripped, slamming to the floor. I looked down and it was _not_ the wooden floor it should have been. It was steel...everything spun and reeled and suddenly I was not in my house at all but in a compact metal room which was more threatening than I could have imagined. Sinister bolts lined the steel plates and a huge, heavy door looked just as immoveable as the walls.

I walked to the door and looked out the tiny slots that had been carved in it. Outside this cell was blackness. Suddenly a light turned out, seemingly miles down a hallway. As if in answer, other lights flickered on, the line creeping towards where I stood.

Finally the last bulb burst into life right in front of the door and things spun again.

They strapped me down and I screamed, struggling heatedly against the leather binds. White and green and my screams...I was wheeled down the hallway, kicking and yelling.

"Not me! I'm not crazy! It's that lasher, not me!" What on earth is a lasher? Is that even what I said?

An incision...right down my left leg, and the ripping, tearing of flesh like cloth, a long steel nail through my skin.

"_It has to be done. Sick, sick girl. You'll be cured—won't that be wonderful?" _

Rusty, thick, mean nails drilled through a glove. I was wearing it, flexing it on my fingers.

Galen saw it and commented on it, a delicate eyebrow raising. My eyes, a shock of green, melted into his grey-blue ones and I punched the wall, driving into the plaster, and blood oozed from the white. Scalpel in the wall. Scalpels in patients. I've got to open the door...

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"_Sage, dreams are not just thoughts in sleep. Dreams are all we have. Save the night; we still need to dream. You get it, you know." _

_They tell me I want you, Galen. I want to stop dreaming it and start living it. They must be right if what you say is true. Life is a dead end, and if I have to face it alone I don't want to face it at all. I'd rather commit suicide than lose you._

_Save the night? Save my life._

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I didn't trip this time. I managed, as usual, to take the steps in my odd manner (skip a step, take a step, skip a step, and take a step...repeat...) without the polished wooden floor leaping up to fell me. The door was in plain sight, not menacing or plotting my downfall. It's a frustrating thing, though, when some doors refuse to be opened. Doors with locks and keys _must_ have something somewhat interesting inside them, or else they wouldn't be locked. When you carry a key, know that you hold something the world can only guess about, even if it only leads to a shed full of gardening tools.

I paused at the knob. I always treasure the moments when Galen comes to me. Always a pause, just enough to drip some adrenaline, to force my heart to race. Maybe just to brace myself. I never get tired of seeing him on my doorstep.

The latch, the wood, the knob, the glass, the handle, the...Galen.

"Hi," I said. He looked the same as usual, decked in studs and baggy jeans. He was wearing his favourite Goo Goo Dolls t-shirt, the black one with the big white letters. His hair was having a wild day, the dirty blond locks flying every direction and ending at the junction between jaw and ear, overlapping on occasion the pale skin of his boyish cheeks. Those blue eyes were fixed on me; a faint smile hovered on his lips.

I was wearing black pants and a white t-shirt with the same old "I love New York" printed on it. We were opposites today; it was amusing. My hair, though, tends to be people's focal point when they first see me. It's longer than Galen's, about an inch above my shoulders. It's naturally a light auburn. I dyed the last few inches burgundy, and then the very tips bright blue. My parents never really approved. Galen's hair is multi-coloured, naturally. There are streaks of blonde and streaks of brown and occasionally red, especially under the first few layers. He would rather shave it all off than take dye to it.

Galen was, of course, used to my hair by now, and he simply stood there and smiled as if he knew something the world didn't. And maybe he did.

We tromped up to my room. My dad called out a short "Hello Galen" and Galen replied. It was a friendly exchange; my parents loved him. They trusted him but more importantly they trusted _us_ enough to let us be in a room together without having the keep the door open. We sometimes joked that my parents would let us _shower _together. I think, though, that they knew he was good for me. They're parents after all; no matter what they do love me.

"I felt like a mental patient," I explained, continuing to tell him about my dream. I was on my floor, leaning against my bookcase. Galen sat cross-legged on my bed, his head in his hands, occasionally blowing a piece of hair out of his face.

"I bet that comes from all the therapy and stuff. Everyone thinks you're crazy, and you don't think you belong there but you really have no choice. The glove might be your desire to have some control over the situation, you know? You feel like your own life's out of your hands and you want to put it back in, even if it's through violence." I love being able to get sensible answers. I did, however, leave out the part where I saw him. I'm not sure why.

"That sounds really reasonable." I laughed shortly. "Too reasonable. I hate your mad skills." He stuck his tongue out and I replied by leaping up and shoving him into my bed with my hand. "_You_ need to sleep. _Now._"

"What? Why?"

"I can tell you didn't last night."

"I said I would, did you think I li—"

"Yes," I interrupted. "Sleep now. We'll talk when you wake up."

"Yes mistress," he said with a grin, but I could see he was nervous. Either way, he laid down and closed his eyes. I sat back down.

"I'll watch you," I assured him. "At the smallest whimper, I'll wake you up. Don't worry, okay?"

"Thanks," he muttered. His breathing was already slowing. It didn't take long before he was fast asleep, his rhythmic breathing filling the room. Hours passed, and I kept my promise, busying myself with books and whatnot and checking on him often.

Hours and hours passed. The light outside grew grey and then finally turned off. It was around nine, and he'd been sleeping peacefully for nearly four hours.

For years, he told me, he'd had nightmares. Ever since his cousin Joey died he'd had them. Everyone said Joey was murdered, but nobody knew by whom. Some said it was suicide, but Galen knew better of his cousin. And he'd tell me about it.

"Sliced up and drowned in his own waterbed. Sage, people don't commit suicide that way, and Joey had no will to die. I wasn't even told he was dead for weeks. They didn't want to 'worry' me.

"It seems every time I close my eyes, I'm Joey, staring up from the grave. He was _murdered_ and it disturbs me. I can't even sleep because of the imagery sometimes, the idea of him under the ground, slashed up and rotting...I suppose it must be like your burial fear." And I suppose it was.

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**I'm stopping it here because I wanted to update but I don't want it to be too long; I know I hate reading really long updates. It's an awkward place to stop but whatever...**

**By the way, Sage lives in Buffalo New York, and Galen lives over in Williamsburg. Joey, as we know, is from Springwood. But Joey and Galen never lived close together, they were just related. **

**See you next time!**


	4. We still need to dream

**Alrighty children. I'm going to try and update as much as possible in the next few days because Kingdom Hearts Two is coming out on Tuesday and naturally I'm going to be a mindless zombie that whole week. Teehee.**

**Anyway, next chapter, same disclaimers, hope you like it, review if you have the time! **

–**begs- **

**Chapter Four **

I watched Galen turn over slowly. I remembered the terror in his eyes when he talked about Joey and his nightmares. He said it felt like he'd 'inherited' something from Joey. I wondered about it.

When Galen talked about my 'burial fear', I knew it wasn't so much fear as failure to accept. It just didn't suit me that you'd never _see _them again.

Really, one day you talk to them, touch them, and then, even when they're dead, you'd be consoled if they were kept around. But then they have to put them under...it makes me want to have a fit. _It isn't fair._ The dead can't dream...I'd rather be in a coma than dead.

But as I said before, I'd rather be dead than without Galen. Then again, he'd rather be dead than dreaming. That doesn't stop him from interpreting mine. This must be one of those 'vicious cycles' I hear so much about.

Galen sighed softly. I looked on as his fist clenched into the sheets. Suddenly he gasped, his face contorting so it looked as though he were in heartbreaking pain.

"Galen?" I leapt up and practically jumped onto him. He awoke with a start as I grabbed his arms and shook. His hands latched onto my them and he glared into my eyes, startled.

"Sage?" I could feel his breath on my lips.

"What did you dream about?" was my answer. He took a second to remember.

"There was a pool, but it was in the middle of the woods. You were there, and these other people...it was fun but then there were screams. There was...slaughter, I guess you could call it. I think _I _was doing it." He paused, looking upset. "Oh my gods, I was murdering people! I cut them with this glove."

"Like the one I dreamt of?"

"No, this one had long blades on the fingers. I was slashing everyone and they drowned in the pool. You tried to stop me with fire and punches, but you couldn't." I tried to imagine how I would use fire. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I killed you. I grabbed you and slashed your back. There was so much blood it clouded the pool red...

"The trees became red, then they melted, and I drowned in them, swallowing up the bloody water—_your _blood." This disturbed him badly, I could tell. I hugged him to me.

"It's okay. It was just a dream. We'll think about it, but we can't take it too seriously." I let him go and he fell back to the sheets. I fell down beside him, my body using up the last of my bed's space. "You know you would never kill me. Just remember that one fact and he can't hurt you." Galen looked up at me, brows furrowed.

"Who's 'he'?" I faltered.

"I—I don't know," I admitted finally. "Look how pathetic we are, Galen. Falling victim to our own dreams like this. Maybe we're both crazy."

"Well," he stated with a smile, "Maybe not entirely sane, but not crazy." The darkness in my room ebbed away enough for me to see his face, illuminated softly by the red digits of my alarm clock. Who _was_ 'he'? I was far too exhausted to wonder about it.

"Mmm." The pillows were very soft. I missed them. Galen talked to me while I began to drift off. His voice wormed into my wavering brain. It's a trick I love to perform. Listen to something and try to fall asleep. Follow what you're listening to; let it register in your brain. As you drift, you will have short dreams all taken from wild attachments to the real sound. Just follow and think and dream. Drift, sleep, dream. It calmed him down too, talking like that.

His soft, relaxing voice filled the room and my head. I couldn't pinpoint when or what he was saying, but eventually I floated off, hoping he was following close behind.

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I stumbled a little, caught on a bramble. No, it was barbed wire. And that tree couldn't have been real. Neither could the grass or the sky.

I looked up to see a faux twilight sky through thick netting. Suddenly the sky was turned off and I was plunged into darkness. The thorns let me go.

I ran to a large stone wall and scaled it. On the other side was not the false environment from before but a basement. There was light streaming from a roof hatch, but I didn't want to leave just yet. I saw a tool bench and walked over to it.

There were shears, axes, hoes, screws, saws...thick nails, long blades...and gloves. Gloves hanging everywhere like dead human hands. A living hand landed on my shoulder and I yelped, frightened.

There was no relief from the tension. Was this hand living? Burned flesh and somehow unharmed eyes met mine. The stench of death, the smell I hate, filled the air.

Bodies everywhere in the earth, roots growing into them, cracking through their rotting flesh. Murder victims, their blood useless now as their brains turn to liquid and seep through the earth. Death reeked through the foundations of the house. Bodies stacked in an empty house, awaiting to be found, stinking and decomposed.

Piles of dirt hit my stomach. "No!" I screamed, forcing it off me. There was laughter.

"For giving death, you get death." This voice trapped me to the soil and I was suffocating. Galen! I would never see him again, and he would never see me! I was falling to what I feared being on the other side of.

Then I _was_ on the other side, watching dirt being flung on a white corpse. Vision, old as old is, crackled and suddenly the grave was all filled up and I jammed the shovel into the ground in defiance. The marker was out, shining blue under the moon. I knew more than saw what was written on it.

_Galen Whelsh _

_1980-1995 _

_In a kill or be killed world, he decided to do both. _

"No!" I was reeling and sputtering, then all of a sudden in the grave again, dead as dead can be, three burning slashes on my back choking with dirt.

"**_Sage!"_ **

"What!" I sat straight up, looking wildly around my dark room. Galen grabbed my wrist and, turning, I saw he was in tears. Then I realised I was too. There was a pulsing at my arm where he'd locked me in a death-grip.

"I'm so, so sorry! I never...I never would have done it but—_" _

"Galen, what's wrong? You didn't do anything!" Suddenly I saw that his clothes were covered in dirt, and his face with blood. "What have you done!"

"I don't know, I don't know!" he cried hysterically, but not loud enough to wake anyone in my house. "I dreamt that you, that I..."  
"You killed me. But," I sighed into a small fit of tears. "I killed you." I was confused and disoriented. I didn't understand or comprehend what was going on; I was just talking and maybe taking everything too seriously. But then one word finally sunk into my psyche—blood. _Blood._ On his face. _What happened?_ I would never wish harm on Galen. What darkness was my subconscious preaching?

"Why? Why together, _why_?" he muttered. I'd never seen him so fallen apart. Under any other circumstance he's collected and cynical. He doesn't shout, he doesn't weep. And he can be serious, very indeed when it comes to the nightmares. But this was insanity.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said lowly.

"And I'd never even think of hurting you. You're too important to me." Why did it sound like I was defending myself? My fingers clutched his slick face.

"What did I do!" he panicked. "It was like someone was telling me what to do; I was doing someone's bidding. Sage, I think I killed someone!" My first thought was _Nonsense. _But as I burrowed my face into the wrinkles of my sheets I thought about it.

"There's no proof," I protested more to the sheets than Galen. "There's no way you could have gotten out of my house. It's nearly four in the morning; my parents would have noticed." Galen shook his head, his rumpled hair falling in his weary eyes.

"No, I did it. I have killed _something_. Thank the gods it wasn't you..."

We didn't sleep again that night, but stayed awake and consoled ourselves, wrapped together in one bandage-like tangle of human arms and legs. A bandage over a wounding night.

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_"A body was found at 6 a.m. this morning just outside the Ken-Ton district of Tonawanda. Twenty-four-year-old Vanessa Carter drowned in her pool at the home she lived in alone. Police suspect it was murder, as the victim was found with stab wounds in her stomach and back. She was dressed for bed and was most likely sleeping when she was murdered and consequently drowned. There is no leading evidence for conviction yet, but police are still searching the scene..." _

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**Well. **

**Sorry if that got lame. I was reading through what I'd written in my notebook going "What the _hell_ was I thinking!" So count your lucky stars because I actually changed a lot of things. Yes, my dear friends, there are worse train wrecks than this. Scary, huh?**


	5. Heartless

**Sorry that these last two chapters are so late, but FF was being a total dick and wouldn't let me upload documents. **

**Next chapter. Hang in there; the plot will get better.**

**Chapter Five **

I looked out the window and sighed. "Crappy weather today." I turned my bloodshot eyes away to look over at Galen. He nodded.

"They said it would rain. Liars." He took another sip of his Sprite. I never understood how anyone could drink pop in the morning.

"So, do you think they'll find you?" He sighed, looking frustrated.

"I don't even remember doing it, how am I supposed to know if I left evidence?"

"Well, I don't know. But all I know is, if you get caught, I'll set up your alibi. My parents will do the same, I'm sure. Your parents can say so too."

"All we can do is wait, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Of course," he said angrily, carefully eyeing the ice in his glass. "Who do you think that man was?" My head shot up.

"What man?"

"The burned one. I only saw a glimpse of him, but I have this feeling he's important. Like I know him, or I should, but I don't. He knows me, and he's real. When I was in the basement I saw him."

"Basement? You mean in your dream?" I pressed eagerly.

"Yeah."

"I was there too! And there were all these terrible gloves, like the ones you and I were wearing. Do you think he was the one compelling you to do what you did?" He thought about it.

"Maybe. I don't want to dream again to find out though." It was my turn to sigh.

"We have to sleep sometime."

"I know, I know." He rubbed his face like a tired old man. Then he smirked. "We'll live. Hell, we can even fight it. It's obviously not going to end, and if we want it to, we'll have to resist it."  
"'It'?"

"This whole thing. The nightmares, the man, the gloves, the...killing." Suddenly his whole composure cracked. "_I murdered someone._ Someone I don't even know!"

"Relax." I reached across the table and clasped his hand. He shook it off.

"Relax! You might be freaking out a bit too if you'd killed someone! And in my sleep too! What if I do it again!" I felt like I needed to scream for him, to steal his frustration and help him vent it.

"Let it soak in... it was a dark thing. But you can't—"

"Let it get to me? Goddamnit—why can't you understand?"

"Don't yell at me," I said, furrowing my brow. My dreams, his dreams...why was I having nightmares? Why were my dreams getting bad enough for me to call them nightmares? Was I inheriting Galen's dreams the way he inherited Joey's?

Galen's anger broke.

"Sorry. But you have to understand—I just killed someone, and I didn't even know. I can't stop it." There was panic riding his voice and I felt useless against it. I don't consider myself good in the art of comforting others. Really, my solution to everything is simply to sleep it off and dream. Although not everyone's dreams tell them things. It's not that mine are lucid, though Galen's usually are, and that's why he hates them so much. More so now, when he really craves the control.

He's always had the control, but lacked the will to use it. In his dreams, he says he knows it's a dream, but that doesn't ease the pain.

It's the opposite for me; my dreams are the places where there is no worry, save the things that truly bother me. You don't really know yourself until your dreams tell you. They are, quite simply, your subconscious talking. What could be cooler? Or, in this case, what could be worse?

But there was a serious problem at hand. Such thoughts should wait—especially because Galen isn't calmed by his dreams. Quite the polar.

Again I grabbed for his hand, trying to offer the only comfort I'm capable of giving. He accepted this time, grasping my fingers firmly. "So here's the decision: to sleep or not to sleep? I wouldn't want to risk another...incident, but I'm not in favour of waiting around for this to go away..." He looked up at me, weary-eyes and terrified.

"I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair. "I have no bloody idea."

"What are you willing to risk?"

"Nothing. Nothing and everything. I mean, it might not happen again, right?" His blue eyes were begging for assurance.

"Right." Why not give him that assurance? "No sense standing around being afraid."

"No." Out the window the sun was shining, beating the ground senseless. Crappy weather.

"What do you want to do now?" I watched him take another sip of Sprite. It was almost funny how he drank, almost as if he was begging for it to be alcohol.

"What do you want to do?"

"Why don't we watch a movie?" You know, TV actually staves off sleep. So those people who sit up late watching the damn things aren't doing themselves any favours.

We settled on the couch, Galen leaning against one of the couch's arms and I the other. It was such a comforting thing that he was so close. I could smell fear on him even from this distance, but he was trying to calm down. Fear is such a sharp thing to mind; no wonder one can smell it. I wished something I could do would calm his nerves, but there was nothing. Just that awful, unhealthy, tainted feeling of early mornings, under-sleeping, and Sprite. Boy that stuff kills the virgin stomach.

The movie was Labyrinth, one of our classic favourites. Naturally I really enjoyed the peach dream part.

Carefully I followed the movements of the main character, Sarah, loving the colour of her pretty eyes. Galen first noted that they we almost like mine and it flattered me, despite the fact that it wasn't a direct compliment.

There wasn't any place in the entire world I'd rather be than here, with Galen, curled up next to him, watching a movie, sleep deprived. The music of Labyrinth combined with the warmth of Galen's body lulled me to sleep. How I wished it hadn't seemed so right and good. Maybe I could have stopped myself.

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The long stick rapped my neck again, and I squealed in pain. My posture was being fixed, my body being looked over. I suddenly felt quite naked. I hissed again as a stiff-fingered hand gripped my shoulder. Eyes pulled up to mine, glinting in the lazy darkness of the cathedral.

But this wasn't threatening, no. It was pretty. The ground around us was dark with rubble and the ceiling rose like a cylinder. Ribbing the sides were long strips of yellow, orange, gold, and pink stained glass windows arranged in brilliant starbursts. The very top was flat and grey, average, apart from the giant pentagram painted on it.

My eyes dreamily focused back on the burned man.

"I'm not ready," I murmured.

"No, not yet," he replied, grinning.

"I cannot kill. I don't have the heart for killing."

"I can fix that," he said brightly.

Suddenly he thrust a sharp hand through my body, my chest, searching through tissue and bone for the vital organ he wanted. I gasped in not so much pain as surprise as his fingers crushed over my heart and tore it from me. Rubber bands snapped, only they were attached to my body and I could feel them break.

Dust settled. Blood, my mind's creation to preserve normality, spilled over the rocks.

I wasn't going to die, and so I didn't wake up. I was okay. You know, the reason you wake up when you die in dreams is because death isn't known. No one knows what death feels like or looks like, and no one who is dead is still dreaming. Your dreams focus on what you know, what your subconscious sees, and when it comes to death, they draw a blank.

The burned man smiled that scarred smile at the now limp and bloody organ crunched in his palm. Then he ate it like an apple, the blood spurting in his mouth and down his chin to dribble on his red and green sweater.

"You're learning."

"But _what_ am I learning?"

"To be heartless."

"But you didn't have...to...eat it!" I was, admittedly, horrified and bothered by the gaping hole in my chest.

"Waste not," he told me, and was gone. I fell to the bloodstained rubble and turned to look at the pentagram on the ceiling. But it was all blue and sparkling—sunlit water. My head rested among coral.

Galen was finally here. He didn't seem to notice my wound. He smiled and touched for me, his eyes bright with moisture. They almost matched the blue of the water around us, making it seem like he was just a continuation of the water inside, and his irises the portals to see. But he became distracted, worried, and confused. Something was pulling him.

_What I need you to do..._

I screamed for him, desperately trying to grasp his hand.

_Is something only the two of you can do..._

He fought, but air seemed necessary for him now. His eyes glazed over.

_If I am not strong enough..._

"Galen!" I tugged at the seaweed as he went limp.

_Maybe you will be._

Tug after incompetent tug.

_Kill for me._

"NO!" I cried, grabbing Galen's head. My fingers worked easily into his weightless, rippling hair. I tugged up his chin.

A giant bubble of air in my lungs, the one that was keeping me alive, swung up through me and into my throat.

_I will survive, and I will do it through you._

I threw my lips onto Galen's, the air bubble rushing into and out of my mouth and into his. In the joy of a breath he awoke and kissed me back, no longer the eerie, suspended corpse he'd been. My arms wrapped around him and pulled him gently to me and away from the retreating seaweed.

_I will have you both!_

Blood swirled through the water, and I woke up.

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	6. Fight, right?

**I literally have no excuse for not updating. I'm a lazy slacker. Besides, summer's started, which I suppose should be a reason to be updating more, I know, but…**

**Freddy: Shut up and get on with the story, bitch, or I'm going to cut you. **

**Dash: Oo'**

**Normal disclaimers apply! **

**Chapter Six**

There was something digging into my stomach. My eyes opened slowly, drowsiness clouding them. My right hand was tangled in Galen's hair (ouch for him). Realising that the object in my stomach was his hip, my eyes shot open to look up at him. It was a strain; my face was embedded in his neck. One of his arms was over my back. I could feel his steady breathing and his heartbeat's pulse under my body.

An odd taste was in my mouth. His taste? Did we really kiss?

"Sage?"

"Morning." Labyrinth had ended and the credits were playing by this point. The orchestral music was relaxing.

"Yeah. Did, um," he spoke softly, his chest shuddering a little. "Were you there?" I knew what he meant. Big brown eyes, burned at the edges, opened in my mind. A sick feeling washed over me and in a desperate attempt to forget it I pressed against my best friend. My disturbing dream, however, would be anything but forgotten. Like Pandora's box, once I'd started thinking about it, I just couldn't stop. Galen himself looked torn up too. Or maybe…it was something else entirely. There was a telltale blush beneath his cheeks.

"Did that really happen?"

"What? Oh, the kiss? Yeah. But _honestly_, how can you think about that when—"

"We dream all the time. That was the first time I've ever done _that._ With _you_, no less."

"What, is that a bad thing?" I asked doubtfully.

"Of course not," he snapped. "I just meant that, I mean, I dunno."

"You're so eloquent," I stated, a little on the drained side. Hearts and blood and evil, man-eating seaweed…I could now almost see the logic behind all the therapists.

"Hey." He furrowed his brows. "I'm trying, precious." To drive the point home he seized one of my cheeks and pulled. I swatted him and rolled off the couch, off of him.

"What, did my fat ass kill all the circulation to your brain?"

"_Sage._"

"Oh, fine, what?"

"Did you like that, at all?"

"Of course I did. I like you that way."

"Do you?"

"Duh." I motioned for him to follow me into the kitchen. I wanted nothing more than to drown my troubles in Hawaiian Punch. Admittedly, I was being a little too passive. The truth is that kissing him was the nicest experience I've had in months. It was a bit disappointing that it took a dream to make it happen. A dream, and that horrible burned man. Already that punk was ruining things. If he could make something in a dream really happen…no, that's nonsense.

I lay a hand over my heart. Its steady beat relieved me. _Still there, dummy. What did you expect?_

Galen touched my shoulder hesitantly.

"I like you that way too. That's alright, right?"

"Right," I said with a grin, and he returned it. I beamed. Nothing like that smile to make the nightmares go away.

"So, are we, like…"

"Dating?" I asked, turning to face him. His blue eyes went wide for a moment.

"…yeah."

"Galen, we've been dating ever since we met." Apparently this was news to him.

"What the fuck do you mean!"

"If you didn't like me as much as you do, we wouldn't be here. If you hadn't liked me half as much as I liked you, we wouldn't be in this situation. Do you remember what that burned man said?"

"Said?" he asked, confused. "I wasn't really focused enough to hear what someone said. What burned man?" I blinked.

"The one who ripped out my—where the hell were you when all that stuff went down!"

"Uh, floating in the abyss."

"Well," I said, sticking my tongue out at him. "There was this horribly burnt man and he was super creepy, in a child molester sort of way. He was…inspecting me? He ripped my heart out and said he was 'teaching' me to be heartless. When you started to drown, he muttered something about needing us, us killing for him. You don't remember any of that?"

"No," Galen replied. "But…that man is familiar. I've seen him before in my nightmares."

"Has he mentioned anything about killing?"

"No, but I could sense it on him. I didn't have to hear him say he was a killer to know, you know?"

"He was pretty awful," I agreed. "Come on, I need to go write this down." Galen followed me as I headed up the stairs and to my room.

"We are going to fight him, right?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not ready to sell myself off this creep, especially if he wants me to kill for him. It was just a dream, after all, you know. But I do think he could be behind what happened to us last night. There's got to be a link between your 'killing' last night and what he said. And we're _still_ not sure what you really did…"

"I know, but we have to be careful, right?"

"Definitely. We're not going to let this happen to you again. Whether we end up killing or not, we're going down swinging." Now in my room, Galen fell to the bed, muttering "Excellent" softly. There were a few moments of silence (aside from the sounds of me rummaging through my disorganised room for my journal) before he spoke again. "So, um, about this kiss. Are you…" _Am I what?_

"I'm all yours." Binding words, but I meant them. Phrases like that are often overlooked, though. Like Valentine's Day cards asking "Be mine?" Be _mine._ Such a serious question on something so cheap and mass produced. The entire world would be enslaved if we took Valentine's Day seriously. Thank goodness we don't.

Besides, now was hardly the time for splitting up. When people split up they usually end up dying, one by one. And though that may be the movie version of what happens, it can still be applied to real life.

My Valentine was almost asleep by the time I finished writing about our latest nightmare. I jumped up next to him.

"What are you doing?" I hissed.

"_We're_ going to sleep. Come on…" He pulled me down and wrapped his arms over me.

"But…what about the…"

"We'll be fine, if you're right here, like last time…" _If you're right here, you can save me again, right? Is that what you're thinking? _"When we were sleeping in your bed last night we weren't far apart, but you couldn't stop me. This time you were right here and you saved me. As long as we stay together, we can live."

"But what the man said—he wanted us together."

"_Because_ of our strength. We can use our strength just as easily as he can."

"You make too much sense," I relented. _I trust you, and I'm tired. So…_ "Goodnight, then."

The last thing I saw was my own hand gently fingering a fold on his t-shirt.

"We'll be fine."

**Thank you so much to all my reviewers! I love you guys, seriously. And thanks for hanging in there while I was a lazy ass. Cookies and Freddy plushies for all! –huggles Freddy plushie- :D **


	7. Spyglass Lake

**Delay. Huge ass delay. I know and I'm sorry; life takes hold like that. Anyway, here's chapter seven if anyone is still interested.**

**-------**

My feet pounded against the boards and my reflection in the water was blurred. The boards were light tan and the water was dark, opaque blue with the shapes of clouds floating over it despite the fact that the sky overhead was completely overcast in a faint green colour. Like strands of a spider web, many more boardwalk spanned out across the mirror lake. They all seemed to be either desperately reaching towards or away from a small shack.

The shack was made of dirty grey wood, and the shingled roof was pointed much higher than it needed to be. There were windows, all cracked and fogged.

The faint outlines of mountain loomed over the lake.

I suddenly fell, as though a board had decided to life up an inch or two, just because. My hands scraped the planks and it felt as though I'd also skinned my knee. On my knees (being careful to avoid the hurt one) I stared into the water at my own clear reflection. Then the planks were tilting, tossing me into the water where I landed in a brilliant splash. Because it was a dream the water was neither hot nor cold, and it felt more like coloured air than water. I could see and I could breathe. Good news, I suppose. But I also knew that the burned man wouldn't let me drown. Then Galen's name echoed in my thoughts, so my dream made room for him.

I hoped I hadn't just put him in danger.

Well, didn't the man say that he needed Galen and I together? I might end up needing to use that as an advantage. But I don't think I was worried so much about us getting hurt than being used for the wrong reasons.

The next thing I knew I was squirming in a puddle, desperate for air I never lost. As I looked through my soaking wet hair I noticed I had been plunked down right in front of the door to the shack. Taking the hint, I stood and opened the door.

The interior reminded me of a classroom, as it was cheaply carpeted and there were blackboards along the walls, broken only by intermittent windows.

In the centre was a platform and on the platform Galen was tied. He was shirtless, and all over his chest red lines were dashed like plays on a football field. The burned man was standing over him, looming. Galen's blue eyes were wary but he was still. I closed my eyes and felt his pulse mingle with mine. When I opened them I was next to him. I tugged on a surgical mask. The burned man handed me a knife and smiled, flashing a disgusting grin. I didn't want to take it but the next thing I knew I had and Galen was splayed and bloody and I held his heart in my hands.

I felt a crying sensation, because the look on his face was so moving…and it hurt me.

As the burned man explained something to me I touched Galen, rubbing my fingers in the bloody mess on his pale chest. His skin was soft and fleshy.

_Burned man._

_My name…is Freddy Krueger, _he told us. _Are you ready? _

Ineffable sadness.

Galen watched me accept the knife once again, but he did not look at it with conviction. I felt like a mother buying a back of smack while her child looked on. Galen's hand ran up my wrist, to my hand, onto the knife's handle. He looked at me and I knew we were in silent agreement.

With sluggish grace we turned and rammed Freddy into the wall, the knife lodged in his chest. For good measure we twisted it, almost enjoying the brittle, sick snapping sound. We stepped back.

Freddy just laughed and laughed. Then he backhanded me.

I went reeling back with a stinging cheek. Galen was enraged, and he launched himself at Freddy, who deflected him with one easy motion. It terrified me that we were virtually powerless in his presence. I was brutally reminded of this when I slammed into the wall with charred fingers at my throat. He sneered in my face. I pulled back in disgust.

"You don't seem to getting this. It's not that hard." Somehow he found Galen's heart and waved the pulsing apple in front of my face. Nervously I looked past it at Galen's figure on the floor.

_Look at me! You are my slaves. You can't argue with this. _Warm, sweet blood squirted onto my face; Freddy punctured the heart with a razored finger. To my great dismay he ran his tongue along my cheek.

Were we dead?

The cool surface of the knife pressed into my hand. Then I was released, and, along with a revived Galen, I was booted from the shack, right through one of the fetid windows. In a hail of glass shards we fell, only to plunge into the lapis waters.

**-------**

"Sage…?" someone moaned far from my ear. I rolled over, feeling something prickly all over my body. It wasn't until I felt something crawl over my hand that I had the will to get up. Greeting me was a throbbing headache. I heard my name again. My eyes began to clear.

I was in a forest. Fog rested on and above the ground like suspended carpet. It wasn't quite morning yet; there was a chill in the air and plenty of moisture to survive before the scorching sun rose. Was this real life or a dream?

As I stood I realised with a sinking feeling that I was awake. I was also disoriented and my aching head didn't help the cause.

"Galen!" I screamed out.

"Sage?" I ran through the fog, blindly groping at trees as I went. Suddenly a figure was coming towards me. Twigs snapped beneath his feet. He ran into my arms and I hugged his skinny little body to me. My fingers threaded through his soft hair.

"Galen," I murmured into his skull. He was trying to tell me something but he couldn't' talk. His words ripped on the breath that came out in sharp, full gasps. "What did you see?"

"Bodies," he managed to finally whisper out. In horror I pulled back. That's when I first realised his arms, temples, and neck were slick with blood. Wildly he glared and the feral, terrified look on his face was so unlike him I couldn't stand it.

He tugged me, reluctantly, away from where we stood. The forest floor rose up into a bowl-like depressing with a base about the size of two houses. Among the fog and fronds and pine needles we saw the bodies.

Their limbs, some bloody, some stumpy, but all pale, rose from the mist, unmoving, marking their own gravesite. There were a few faces blindly surveying the site. The very mist itself seemed slightly red as though it was absorbed some of the spilled blood. The carpet of bodies expanded over the entire depression like a garden gone horribly wrong.

As I gaped, Galen picked his way down into the bowl, and when he'd managed it, he called up to me. "Do you know any of them?"

"I sure hope not," I mumbled, suppressing a cry of ultimate horror. It was morning, and it had been morning when Galen and I had first fallen asleep. But it was earlier than that had been. I inferred, then, that we'd lost an entire day. An entire day that _we didn't remember, _but this carpet was certainly a souvenir of those mystery hours. Here we were, covered in blood, surrounded by dozens of bodies. Who know how we killed them all, or even if we were seen doing it.

Massacre. My parents were probably looking for us. It was also Monday; Galen was supposed to be back with his mother and I should have been at school.

As we moved through the battlefield and cried and panicked we thought. We thought about what we'd done and what we were going to do.

First things first. Galen decided we were going to the library to find out what exactly we were up against.

**-------**

**That was very short, I know, but I just wanted to get an update out there. As I've said before, I'm typing this out of a notebook and I wrote this last year, and I'm increasingly amazed at how awful the writing is. XD It's nice to know I've improved.**


	8. Fingerprints are hard to burn off

**Spring break is the magical time for picking up fic you've neglected, right? **

**Usual disclaimers apply. I own Sage and Galen and not much else. Seriously—my vast riches add up to about seventeen dollars. Nothing worth suing here. **

* * *

"Are you _sure _that's how you spell it?" Galen fisted his fingers through his hair.

"Yes!" I cried. I was equally frustrated. Galen was staring blankly into a computer screen and I was delving into written records. I spelled Krueger's name again for him.

I was being careful in my research, because if I focused more than necessary I wouldn't think about the misty forest and the bodies, bodies that someone cared about. Lovers, spouses, sons, daughters, friends. I think I'd already lost it, though; I couldn't remember going to the library at all, or even which library we were in. It was unnaturally silent and empty.

When we found useful information, what then? Part of me wanted to stay here and research forever and never find a thing; I wished to read page after page, all blank, until I rotted in this chair.

"Fred Krueger, child killer?" he asked grimly.

"That'd be the one."

"'Committed numerous murders in the early eighties' and 'was accused of teen murders' years later, after he went missing. 'Presumed dead' and disappeared after a trial for the child killings 'during which he was freed', probably because of some loophole." He shook his head. "Anyway, says he was doing his killing in a warehouse's boiler room."

I shuddered, imagining what a child would have thought, left in that sort of situation.

"Is that all"

"I think that's more than enough."

I slammed the cover of my book shut. "Okay." He looked so old and exhausted sitting there. I pulled him close and placed two fingers on his chest to feel his heart beating. To my relief it was there; we had become metaphorically heartless in the dreams, after all. I kissed his temple, his neck, breathing in his scent.

"Aw, isn't that cute?" spoke a patronizing voice. Galen turned, his eyes widened, and he jumped backwards in surprise.

Freddy stood to the side, thoughtfully scraping his claws against a bookshelf. "You two are so gullible, but you have your priorities straight. Research." He gave a garbled laugh, physically impossible with the state of his throat.

"Are we…still dreaming?" Galen asked doubtfully. We exchanged glances.

"Children. You don't know anything about me." His words were covered not by one layer of mocking but of two, as though he was sarcastic about sarcasm. "You don't know about the dreams they had or how bad they fought." Forget sarcasm, this was disgusting simpering. "John, Alice, Jesse, Spencer, Glen, Nancy…"

The last name rolled off his tongue like an anthem played over and over. Galen started. Did he recognise that name?

"Nancy was…with Joey…before he died."

"What happened?"

"She…died." For a moment he collected his thoughts. Freddy was strangely quiet; must have been interested. "Everyone he cared about at the psyche ward died." I'd heard about the clinic from Galen. Apparently Joey had some serious problems, including depression, self-mutilation, and, of course, nightmares. Every time I looked at Galen, a flicker of my imagination wondered what Joey looked like. He used to sigh about how his dad told him how much like Joey he was. The worst part was his aunt, who called him by Joey's name. It was safe to say that ten years hadn't been kind to the woman; she was absolutely bonkers. I couldn't blame her.

"Of course they all died. I built up quite a collection, like little dead butterflies. Their dreams killed them, and what a shame—no one believed them until it was too late."

"Spare us, you bastard," I interjected. He went on as though he didn't hear me.

"Now that we're properly acquainted…"

Suddenly his face was inches from mine, a bookshelf pressing into my back. He found my hand and, using his non-clawed appendage, pressed his fingertips to mine.

A searing pain lit through them. My skin was burning and I screamed in agony. When he was done I fell to the floor, unable to move. As he advanced on Galen I began to fade out drowsily, my vision cracking until I awoke.

* * *

My head collided with the coffee table and heat burst behind my eyelids.

"Agh!" I writhed on the carpet, working out the pain until I was fully awake and able to comprehend what happened. So that was all a dream—the bodies? Even the library? I looked at Galen, who was sleeping peacefully with the occasional twitch, the only sign that his sleep was anything but _peaceful_.

"Galen?" I nudged him. He didn't react. It took nearly two minutes to rouse him, but he was dazed, sweaty, and confused.

"Sage," he moaned, glazed eyes fixed upon the high ceiling. "He talked to me all alone, you know. You left me!"

"I didn't have a choice."

"…" At last he emerged his stupor and pulled me up to the couch with him. Once again I found the sound of his heartbeat immensely comforting. "Do you want to know what we talked about?" I prepped myself, like a little girl about to hear a story, and nodded.

"He went on and on about all sorts of shit. He talked about killing, how he did it to the kids and the teens. We talked about" –a sharp intake of breath- "Joey. He told me that after Joey…you know…went on vacation, he searched for a medium. It was years, you remember, since he'd first come back and…he was tired, I guess, of failing just by dreaming into their minds. He wants something more physical, something that won't fail, at least as quick as everything else did." A smile dazzled his face, surprisingly. "With all the rubbish he goes on about, you should be grateful I figured any of that out.

"Anyway, he said he looked for an outlet, and found me. When I was a kid I had really…sharp dreams, too scary, too happy. Real. He knew he could get to me, 'like an open window'. And then when he found you in my dreams…well, that makes me feel horrible.

"If I dreamed about you he could tell you were real. That's why, after all those years, he made his move _now. _He saw you as an open window too and thought he could have you." He gulped as though the words burned him and continued. "You know, don't put all your eggs in one basket, and all that."

"Is he watching you?"

"I don't know. I don't think so; it's gotta just be when I'm sleeping."

"Is he watching _me_?" I asked in horror, which doubled tenfold when he hesitated and slowly nodded.

"He's in you now. He reached out to capture you so you'd be under his control before he got me. He thought that if I went first you'd find a way to stop him."

"He told you all this? How much does he know?"

"He knows how to control people, and we should be no problem, especially because he knows our thoughts. He knows how to kill. I think that's something to worry about."

I said with a groan, "And you're going home today."

"I told him that."

"And…?" An arm slinked around my shoulders.

"He's not going to do anything unless we're together." My heart sank.

"That means?"

"We have to either stay apart for…maybe forever, or risk killing for real."

"I'd rather kill than—" My words were muffled when he thrust a hand over my mouth. He glared into my eyes dangerously, boring blank holes into my thoughts to suck away all the talk he deemed bad. _You don't mean that. _I shook the hand away.

"At any rate, we've gotta figure this out."

"This is one of those things we really ought to sleep on, huh? Well, that sucks."

"We can do this."

"Right. You really want to go up against _that_?" When I threw my hand up, though, I clamped my mouth shut and examined it closely, remembering the scalding touch Freddy had given me. My fingers felt okay now. "Did you…?"

"Yeah." A slow, steady sigh escaped his lips. "I wonder what he did."

"Come on, we'll find out."

I headed into the kitchen, dug through the pen drawer for some paper and tape, and then grabbed an ink pad from the craft store in our laundry room. Ignoring his confusion, I grabbed Galen's hand and pushed his index finger into the soft, ink-clogged pores of the pad. I pressed this into the paper and quickly taped it over. He sniffed when I shoved the completed project under his nose. "Look at it; tell me if something's wrong."

"Oh yeah," he gushed sarcastically. "I think that this millimetre-sized line right there should be lower than that."

"I guess you're right." I paused. "We ought to do me now." He raised an eyebrow at the innuendo but I repeated the process with my own finger and examined the results. "I'm afraid I haven't memorised my fingerprint either." Frustratedly I tossed it to the kitchen table, next to Galen's. Idly he began to toy with them as I sunk into a chair, defeated.

"Hang on." He looked up. "Look at them next to each other." I obeyed, then gasped. They were identical. "You wanna bet those are Krueger's prints?"

"Oh, no." Such a disgusting thought. "We aren't Freddy! We're never going to _be _Freddy!"

"Technically, we _are _Freddy. If anyone fingerprints us…"

It popped into my head then—a horrible thought that it would be fun to wreak havoc and leave prints behind that, if anyone despairingly examined, would find they belonged to a killer presumed dead. By all accounts he should have been dead for over ten years.

"Ugh."

"I know."

"We won't have another chance to sleep while you're here."

"I know that too."

"I don't like what that means. If you walk out my door and never come back…"

"I could tell my mom we had a fight and I don't want to come back." Softly he spoke, trying not to believe we were in this sort of trouble.

"It could end right now, you're saying."

"If we're never together."

"But what if we're together and not sleeping?"

"…I think his grip on us is only going to get worse. It's only a matter of time before we're both at his disposal. Do you want to risk that?"

"You mean he's just gonna be festering inside us until he shows his teeth?"

"I don't know how long it's going to take, but we can't be together until we figure something out. We need _time_, and we don't get time if he can get his nasty little fingers on us. He _needs _us together. He pretty much just gave us both his identity."

"You make it sound like you want to separate." Heat burned beneath my eyes.

"I don't, believe me. I'm just being masochistic." I didn't ask why, because we all have those moods. Even though you love what you have it's easier to rid yourself of it all than deal with its complications. Just hurry up and go; get it over with.

"Okay, okay. Then I guess it's best to…" I couldn't finish because my voice was choked with the hopelessness. We had to think of a way to combat a guy who had lost before, yes, but had taken extreme casualties beforehand. Then it had to work; I doubt we'd get second chances. And if not, we couldn't see each other, or risk having one another killed.

"We have to."

"But, fuck." I gripped him close, fisting in his shirt and hair, kissing him. His soft lips did not refuse me. It was hard to believe that it may be an eternity before I felt this mouth and this tongue upon mine again.

I wished in that moment that Krueger would just…burn. Burst into flames that burn him into a world of hurt, turning him to ash from the inside out, like he's done to so many people. I wish he could never again touch me. I wish he would just _die. _

There wouldn't be much sleeping for me anymore, even to distract from this suffering.

* * *

**Hey, did you know that if you take the A out of Galen's name it spells Glen? Uh, three cheers for unintended references to Nightmare on Elm Street characters? **

**And your spot of random trivia today is that Sage's real name is Vanessa but me, being fairly lazy, didn't like writing it over and over, so I gave her a goofy nickname and it stuck. **

**Again I apologise if any parts of this story don't flow well, but I had to butcher it up pretty badly to make it somewhat readable. I like this story, and I want to make it better than it was in its raw form. If anything bothers you (a reviewer said the library was random and out of place, and I completely agree) please drop me a line. **

**Until next time!**


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